Scottish Executive

Concessionary Travel

Dennis Canavan (Falkirk West): To ask the Scottish Executive when it will implement a national free off-peak concessionary travel scheme for older people and people with disabilities.

Nicol Stephen: I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-1612 on 21 August 2003. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search ..

Education

Mr Bruce McFee (West of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made in producing further educational material on the 1820 Martyrs, as referred to by the Deputy Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs in the debate on the 1820 Martyrs in the Parliament on 5 September 2001 ( Official Report , c 2263).

Peter Peacock: In his response to Mrs Margaret Ewing, Mr Nicol Stephen, the then Deputy Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs noted the importance of relevant materials on Scottish history, including, if appropriate, material on the 1820 Martyrs. Such material is widely available to schools.

  Mr Stephen did not give a specific commitment to the production of new material on the 1820 Martyrs.

Energy

Christine May (Central Fife) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what discussions it has had with the Department for Trade and Industry in relation to the security of electricity supply over the winter months.

Lewis Macdonald: The regulation of the electricity sector, including ensuring security of electricity supply, is a reserved matter.

  The Scottish Executive is in regular contact with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) on a wide range of energy-related issues. In particular, we are represented on the DTI-Ofgem Joint Energy Security of Supply Working Group, which monitors the security of the United Kingdom's gas and electricity supplies.

Energy

Phil Gallie (South of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what the (a) total output of electricity generated and (b) total level of electricity consumed for each of the years 1990 to 2000.

Lewis Macdonald: In Scotland in 2000, 49,499 GigaWatt Hours (GwH) of electricity was generated and 33,807 GwH was consumed. Comparable information for earlier years is not available.

Financial Services

Mr Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has for engagement with the financial services sector.

Mr Jim Wallace: The First Minister is today announcing the formation of a senior level group, which I will chair, and which will bring together public and private sector participants to develop a strategy to support the financial services sector in Scotland. I will write to the convenor of the Enterprise and Culture Committee of the Parliament detailing membership and remit in early course.

Fisheries

Mr Ted Brocklebank (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will extend the deadline for applications for aid under the Transitional Aid Scheme for Scottish fishermen to 31 December 2003, in light of the extension of the review of interim cod recovery measures to this date.

Ross Finnie: We are looking at the case and arrangements for any extension of the scheme. In particular, we are exploring with the European Commission what the implications would be in terms of EC State Aid requirements.

Freight

Helen Eadie (Dunfermline East) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what representations it has received from Scottish Enterprise concerning the promotion of return freight business from mainland Europe to Scotland.

Mr Jim Wallace: I am not aware of any representations made to the Scottish Executive by Scottish Enterprise on return freight business from Europe to Scotland.

Freight

Helen Eadie (Dunfermline East) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many conferences have been organised by Scottish Enterprise to promote freight transport from Rosyth to Zeebrugge and vice versa.

Mr Jim Wallace: This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise.

Hospital-Acquired Infection

Mr David Davidson (North East Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will include patients, visitors and staff in any surveillance programmes to minimise the risk of hospital-acquired infections.

Malcolm Chisholm: Reducing the risk of Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) is very important for the well-being of patients and staff, and is one of NHS Scotland's national priorities.

  The Clinical Standards Board for Scotland (now NHS Quality Improvement Scotland) published standards on HAI Infection Control in December 2001. Members of the public were involved in agreeing the standards. NHS boards' performance against the standards has been reviewed by NHSQIS teams which included representatives of the public; reports were published in January 2003.

  The HAI Task Force, chaired by the Chief Medical Officer, is undertaking a programme of work to support the NHS in tackling HAI more effectively; for example, the task force has published for consultation an NHS Scotland Code of Practice on Infection Control and a National Cleaning Services Specification. The consultation process invites suggestions for enhanced public involvement in monitoring compliance with the code of practice and the National Cleaning Services Specification.

  A national mandatory hospital infection surveillance system was introduced in 2001 to monitor MRSA blood infections. Since then, monitoring has been extended to include surgical site infections, with particular reference to neurosurgery and orthopaedics. The results of the MRSA monitoring work are analysed by the Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health (SCIEH) and are published quarterly.

Hospital-Acquired Infection

Mr David Davidson (North East Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will introduce a published grading scheme for hospital cleanliness and hospital-acquired infections.

Malcolm Chisholm: NHS Quality Improvement Scotland has issued standards on Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) Infection Control and on Cleaning Services for NHSScotland. Audit Scotland has also undertaken work on the performance of NHS cleaning services. Reviews of performance against these standards have been undertaken, and the results published - most recently in January 2003. A further round of reviews will be undertaken by NHSQIS and reports published, in 2004.

Hutters

Dr Elaine Murray (Dumfries) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what action is being taken to resolve the issues raised in petition PE14 from the Carbeth Hutters' Association.

Hugh Henry: I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-30533 on 7 November 2002. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search ..

  We are aware that constructive discussions continue at local level to resolve the difficulties at Carbeth. It would not be appropriate for the Executive to seek to intervene in private negotiations between landlord and tenants, but we would encourage local resolution of such difficulties.

Ministerial Correspondence

Karen Whitefield (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what its performance in answering ministerial correspondence was in the second quarter of 2003.

Patricia Ferguson: I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-24583 on 28 March 2002, I undertook to continue to report quarterly on the numbers of letters received by ministers and our performance in answering them.

  All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search..

  Previous figures included information on invitations which, by their nature, may not always require to be considered in the same time scale as other items of correspondence. With that in mind and to give a clearer picture of the Executive's performance in dealing with letters to ministers, I have decided that invitations will no longer be counted in the total, however, monitoring and tracking of replies to invitations continues. This is therefore the first quarter in which I am reporting performance on letters only and not invitations.

  In the quarter April to June 2003, 1,994 letters were received for ministerial reply, of which 74% received a reply within 17 working days and 90% received a reply within 25 working days. In the same period ministers received 561 invitations.

NHS Hospitals

Colin Fox (Lothians) (SSP): To ask the Scottish Executive what action it can take against Consort Healthcare in respect of any failure to adequately maintain electrical generators and electricity supplies to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.

Malcolm Chisholm: Consort Healthcare is the contractor appointed by Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust for provision of the fabric and infrastructure of the Royal Infirmary, and for elements of the facilities management services which support it.

  I have received an interim report on the recent incident from NHS Lothian and I expect to receive the final one in the next month.

NHS Staff

Helen Eadie (Dunfermline East) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made in the establishment of a task force to review advertising and recruitment of staff in the NHS, having regard to any relevant EU directives.

Malcolm Chisholm: A short-life working group was set up in December 2002 by the Executive following the publication of Working for Health - the Workforce Development Action Plan . The outcome from this group's work was a mapping exercise of careers, recruitment and retention across all staff groups and the development of an additional support team called Careers for Health which is currently being established within the department.

  Currently, the responsibility for reviewing advertising and recruitment of staff in the NHS, having regard to any relevant EU directives, is addressed by our professional human resource colleagues in NHS boards. However, the Careers for Health team will consider undertaking as part of its first year projects a review of advertising and recruitment of staff in the NHS, having regard to any relevant EU directives, to establish what benefits there could be from the co-ordination of this activity on a national basis.

Planning

Helen Eadie (Dunfermline East) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many community councils have appealed to the Court of Session against local planning decisions in each of the last five years.

Mrs Mary Mulligan: We do not hold the information you have requested on appeals by community councils. The publication Civil Judicial Statistics Scotland (link to the latest edition of this publication: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/justice/cjst-00.asp ) contains figures under the heading Judicial Review Procedure on Court of Session cases. The figures below are taken from that section of the publication and represent those cases marked "planning permission". They cover the latest five-year period for which figures have been published.

  

 Year
 No. 
  of Petitions


 2001
 16


 2000
 14


 1999
 10


 1998
 12


 1997
 20

Post Office

Susan Deacon (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-387 by Allan Wilson on 9 June 2003, what monitoring arrangements are in place regarding the impact on its social inclusion policies of closures of local post offices under the Urban Network Reinvention Programme.

Ms Margaret Curran: The Executive is keeping under review the impact on social inclusion policies of both the Department of Trade and Industry's Urban Network Reinvention Programme and our own £2 million development fund for urban post offices.

Prison Service

Fiona Hyslop (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-476 by Cathy Jamieson on 30 May 2003, what roles the proposed new prisons at Addiewell and Low Moss will play and how many prisoner places will be provided in each.

Cathy Jamieson: I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

  Each prison will provide about 700 cells and be designed in a way which will, so far as practicable, enable them to house all categories of prisoners and to change their role to meet future needs over the next 25 years.

Prison Service

Fiona Hyslop (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many places in each of the proposed new prisons at Addiewell and Low Moss will be (a) suitable for and (b) intended for (i) prisoners being held on remand prior to conviction, (ii) prisoners serving sentences under four years (short-term prisoners), (iii) prisoners serving sentences of four years and over (long-term prisoners), (iv) short-term prisoners whose crime has meant they have been placed on the sexual offender's register, (v) long-term prisoners whose crime has meant that they have been placed on the sexual offenders register and what proportion of each category will be top-end prisoners moved to these prisons immediately prior to their release.

Cathy Jamieson: I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

  Each prison will provide about 700 cells and be designed appropriately to meet the long-term needs of the prison service in Scotland by being able to accommodate all categories of prisoner during the life of the proposed developments.

Prison Service

Fiona Hyslop (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many staff it expects to be employed in each of the proposed new prisons at Addiewell and Low Moss.

Cathy Jamieson: I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

  Staffing levels will be determined by the operator of the proposed prisons. It is expected that between 350 and 400 staff may be involved in the operation of each prison.

Prison Service

Fiona Hyslop (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what arrangements will be put in place to ensure that offending is reduced after prisoners are released from the proposed new prisons at (a) Addiewell and (b) Low Moss; how many prison staff at each prison will participate in Scottish Prison Service training programmes, and in which programmes they will be trained.

Cathy Jamieson: I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:

  The Scottish Prison Service aims to reduce the risk of prisoners re-offending on release from prison. Arrangements to support these objectives are being developed which will apply to existing and the proposed new prisons. Training at the new prisons will be determined by the operator.

Road Accidents

Nicola Sturgeon (Glasgow) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many careless driving offences have involved a fatality since statistics on careless driving were disaggregated to allow this information to be gathered.

Cathy Jamieson: A separate charge code for offences of careless driving involving a road accident fatality was introduced in March 2002. This additional information should enable such cases to be separately identified in the available statistics on careless driving offences which are proceeded against for 2002 onwards. Final data on court proceedings concluded in 2002 are expected to be available by December.

Road Safety

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many safety camera sites in the Scottish Borders comply with the conditions of the safety camera scheme; whether the conditions of the scheme are mandatory, and what variation of these conditions it will make so that speed cameras can be sited on the entry to, and egress from, Borders towns and villages where local people indicate that this would resolve their concerns over speeding by through traffic.

Cathy Jamieson: The rules of the Scottish Safety Camera Programme require safety camera partnerships to identify the areas where cameras are to be located by identifying road casualty clusters and then surveying these sites to investigate if the problem is related to speed. The programme requires that the majority of sites conform to statistical criteria on accidents although the rules do permit limited flexibility. In principle, that flexibility could allow a camera to be erected where it would not be otherwise justified by the number of accidents, but that should only be after other road calming options have been considered. The overarching aim of the programme is to reduce road casualties and that is why it is so closely tied to those sites with the greatest history of speed-related accidents.

  There are currently 33 fixed and 18 mobile safety camera partnership sites within the Scottish Borders Council area. The mobile sites all conform to the criteria for the programme. The fixed cameras were all established prior to the programme being launched and not all of these meet the standard criteria. However, they have been retained within the programme on the basis of the permitted partnership flexibility.

School Trips

Helen Eadie (Dunfermline East) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made on promoting to local education authorities and head teachers use of the Rosyth to Zeebrugge Ferry for school trips.

Peter Peacock: The promotion of the Rosyth to Zeebrugge link is a matter for Superfast Ferries.

  Education authorities and schools involved in arrangements for school trips abroad will take a wide range of factors into account in considering routes and mode of travel.

Scottish Executive Advertising

Mr Brian Monteith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-1857 by Mr Andy Kerr on 5 September 2003, how much each of its departments spent on advertising in 2002-03, broken down by campaign.

Mr Andy Kerr: Health Dept
 Justice Dept


 
 Spend (£)
 
 Spend (£)


 Alcohol Abuse
 864,258
 Crime Breakers
 33,413


 Breathing Space
 139,272
 Domestic abuse
 481,763


 Drugs
 1,505,490
 Fire Prevention
 470,469


 Flu
 896,032
 Safer Scotland
 176,265


 Healthy Eating/Living
 1,420,325
 Total
 1,161,910


 NHS Helpline
 162,520
 
 


 Free Personal Care
 275,829
 
 


 Organ Donation
 28,355
 
 


 Organ Retention
 94,131
 
 


 Total
 5,386,212
  
  



  

 Rural Affairs
 Development


 
 Spend (£)
 
 Spend (£)


 Environment
 742,759
 European Year of the Disabled
 56,799


 Farmers on Line
 29,154
 Glasgow Housing
 21,083


 Foot and Mouth
 39,421
 Racism
 1,435,412


 Total
 811,334
 Road Safety
 1,565,607


  
  
 Total
 3,078,901



  

 Education
 ELL&T


 
 Spend (£)
 
 Spend (£)


 Child Protection on the Internet
 119,092
 Digital Access
 182,352


 Children's Hearings
 373,721
 Concessionary Travel
 296,986


 Funding for Learners
 72,108
 Regional Selective Assistance
 63,475


 Home Reading
 237,135
 Travel Awareness
 504,677


 Social Care
 541,974
 Traveline
 51,453


 National Debate on Education
 343,985
 Broadband
 7,961


 UEFA
 7,029
 M74
 41,055


 Total
 1,695,044
 Total
 1,147,959

Teachers

Richard Lochhead (North East Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many probationary in each of the last five years have remained in the profession following the completion of their probationary year, expressed also as a percentage of the number of probationers (a) nationally and (b) in each local authority area.

Peter Peacock: The information requested is not held centrally.

Teachers

Richard Lochhead (North East Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what the (a) primary and (b) secondary school teacher to pupil ratio has been in each of the last five years nationally and in each local authority area.

Peter Peacock: Pupil to teacher ratios are published annually as part of the summary results of the school census. Copies are available from the Parliament's Reference Centre. The Bib. numbers for the publications for 1998 to 2002 are 7761, 20194, 20197, 22064, 29040.

Teachers

Mr Bruce McFee (West of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether the proposals of Renfrewshire Council to reduce the number of promoted posts for teachers accord with the McCrone agreement.

Peter Peacock: The agreement A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century does not prescribe levels of staffing. Within the framework provided by the agreement, it is for local authorities to decide what levels of staffing best suits their local needs.

Teachers

Mr Bruce McFee (West of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what representations it has received regarding Renfrewshire Council's proposed restructuring of promoted posts for teachers.

Peter Peacock: We have received two representations regarding the proposed restructuring of promoted posts for teachers in Renfrewshire. Both representations related to proposed reductions in the number of Principal Teachers in Paisley Grammar School.

Waste Management

John Scott (Ayr) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive why projects under the Transforming Waste Scotland Programme are precluded from generating revenue that could sustain their viability.

Ross Finnie: This programme is funded by the New Opportunities Fund, one of the national lottery distribution bodies, and led by Forward Scotland. Given that the programme is funded by the national lottery, it is not appropriate for the Scottish Executive to comment about detailed issues on eligibility for funding.

Waste Management

John Scott (Ayr) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive whether Forward Scotland will produce revised guidelines and clear criteria on how applications under the Transforming Waste Scotland programme are judged.

Ross Finnie: As Transforming Waste Scotland is a national lottery programme, funded by the New Opportunities Fund, it is for the New Opportunities Fund and their agents to consider what guidelines and criteria should be provided to applicants.